Wednesday's newspapers publish a letter signed by the Bishop of
Birmingham and others on the Laundry Bill. It is pointed out that the Government, for all their large majority, have not gone so far as the principles which were laid down by Mr. Asquith in 1895, and were reaffirmed in 1901 by the Liberals when in Opposition. In 1895 it was recognised that all laundries, whether commercial or institution laundries, should be treated exactly like factories and workshops. The
Liberal Government, who depended on the Irish vote, were forced, however, to abandon this position, the Irish Nationalists disliking the inspection of institution laundries under the management of Roman Catholic religious Orders. Under the present Bill, the writers argue, the alternative schemes of work permitted in commercial laundries will add to the confusion, which is already great and notorious enough, and the permission to give the weekly half-holiday in the morning is not sanctioned in any other industry. In institu- tion laundries, according to the proposals of the Bill, the worker will not be publicly informed of the protection offered by the State, or of the name and address of the inspector to whom an appeal may be made. This, of course, is again a concession to the desire of institutions to keep up the appear- ance of not being controlled by the State. We agree that it is a wrong concession. Laundries not properly inspected might compete very unfairly with others, and we are glad to see that the Bishop of Birmingham has no sympathy with the desire of religious houses at once to trade and to be outside the laws which govern labour.
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